First, 26-year-old Alvin Tan Jye Yee fled to United States to seek political asylum. Now, 29-year-old Ali bin Abdul Jalil has fled to Sweden to seek the same thing – political asylum. Sex-blogger Alvin Tan got himself into trouble with the authorities when he and his ex-girlfriend uploaded a photo of themselves eating “bak kut teh”, a Chinese herbal pork soup, with the caption “Selamat Berbuka Puasa” – a Malay greeting used when breaking fast.

Student activist Ali, meanwhile, got himself into hot soup for criticizing the Johor monarchy.While Alvin had escaped using Singapore-Mexico-America route, Ali made it through Malaysia-Thailand-Sweden detour. Alvin did a solo escape (and tons of luck) – walked up to the Mexico border official and said “Yo bro, whatsup … I’m here for political asylum” (*grin*). And he was detained for 3½ months in US immigration detention for not possessing a valid visa upon his entry into the United States.

On the contrary, Ali receives tons of assistance, of which he thanked Amnesty International, Suaram, Antifa Malaysia, Bar Council, Lawyers for Liberty, Sisters in Islam, Projek Dialog, Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia, as he reveals after ended up in Sweden now. Of course, it was the Amnesty International which adopted him as a prisoner of conscience (PoC) that enabled him a smooth journey to Amnesty International Sweden.

News portal Rakyat Times, which is run by activist and lawyer Haris Ibrahim, reported that Ali left Malaysia on October 18 for Bangkok and later flew to Stockholm on October 21. In Stockholm, Ali made his way to Amnesty International Sweden where he was advised on the procedure for applying for asylum status. He was then taken to the asylum centre in Stockholm and later moved to another town, Morsta.

On 22 Oct, he was fingerprinted for identification purpose and handed his passport to the local Swedish authorities. The next day, Ali was interviewed by the immigration authorities where he disclosed details of his pending cases in Malaysia. And it’s not hard to see how the Sweden authorities instantly recognise his strong case, probably after his revelation of assault by a prison official and the threat of being beaten up again.

Amnesty International Sweden is making arrangements for Ali to be given legal representation. There’s another amazing thing – Ali has already been given a work permit and he is free to begin work immediately in Sweden. The fact that Ali was detained for more than 20-days, longer than a murder suspect, before rearrest again, shows a glaring abuse of police power and would help further in his justification for getting an asylum status in the IKEA-land.

Apparently, Ali has been accused of posting seditious remarks on a Facebook page called “Kapitalis Bangsat” (loosely translated to Capitalist Bastard) that allegedly belittled the Johor sultanate. He was first detained on September 8 and was taken into police custody in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Johor. Subsequently, he was released on September 23 after posting bail but immediately was re-arrested and taken to Johor.

It’s one thing to offend the present evil UMNO-led regime, but (totally) another thing to criticise the mighty Johor Sultan. When even former dictator Mahathir dares not venture into Johor sultanate territory, Ali must have balls of steel to challenge the monarchy. Naturally, he has been threatened by gangsters and racist Malay groups in Malaysia – referring to police and gangsters who had followed him all the time – as he claims in his Facebook.

Regardless of their “crimes”, both Alvin and Ali are facing the same charges – sedition. They are also fighting a common enemy – the tyranny of UMNO and its minions, as Alvin likes to put it. Unlike Alvin, Ali faces three sedition charges for allegedly insulting the Johor royalty and the Sultan of Selangor in his Facebook postings. And this speaks volumes about the severity on Ali’s personal safety, let alone getting a fair trial. He would be extremely lucky if he can walk out in one piece after thrown into prison.

In a way, Hong Kong protesters are so much lucky for having a freer and nicer “communist government”. Their police only used 87 rounds of tear gas during their more than 3-weeks of occupation. In comparison, Malaysia police used 262 and 967 rounds of tear gas during Bersih 2.0 and 3.0 respectively. And that was the amount used for 1-day of protest only, mind you. HongKongers were also allowed to fly their national flag upside down as a sign of protest, without any sedition charges. Damn you lucky Hongkies.

There’s a joke in the street though – while anti-government activists (Alvin and Ali) can seek political asylum in the West, pro-government rapist (Rizalman) can seek political asylum in Malaysia (*tongue-in-cheek*). Now that we have Alvin and Ali, will there be Arumugam to complete the full cycle of a happy multi-racial composition, who seek political asylum due to Najib administration’s brutality?

It seems the young activists nowadays think differently, unlike politicians such as Karpal Singh, Lim Kit Siang, Mat Sabu and Anwar Ibrahim who chose prison instead of political asylum to continue their fights against tyranny. Perhaps the young chaps do not have the stamina. Perhaps they couldn’t survive months in the prison, let alone years. Perhaps they’re not heroes after all.

But perhaps they’re smarter to understand the meaning of guerrilla warfare, and luckier to have social media as tools to continue their battles. Anyway, we hope Ali could get his political asylum soonest possible and a job to make ends meet. And don’t forget that Sweden is a cashless country, so getting credit or debit cards would certainly come in handy there.